Paul Horrell reports back on Volvo’s first proper five door hatch. And count him impressed…

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Volvo has finally kicked its strange Scando obsession with estates, saloons and
crossovers. The new V40 is the company’s first proper five-door hatch. It’ll be
revealed at the Geneva show next week, and goes on sale in July. Volvo makes no bones that
it’s aiming straight at the BMW 1-series and next-gen Audi A3. Not an easy job.

To
get noticed, its body is unusually foxy from the outside, and coolly different
within. See that scallop on the rear door? That’s meant to remind you of the
P1800. No, us neither. The glassy, shouldered rear end is rather better at
updating familiar Volvo cues.

The
silhouette is low and fast, and unlike most rivals it doesn’t suffer from a
bulbous, high bonnet. So how does it get around pedestrian impact rules, you ask?
By having an airbag under the bonnet, just ahead of the wiper pivots. If a bank
of seven sensors in the front bumper decides they’re striking a human leg (but
not an elk’s, or a fencepost) then the airbag inflates, lifting the rear of the
bonnet clear of the engine and putting a cushion over the base of the
windscreen and A posts. Ahoy then to another safety first from the
reindeer-eating nation’s finest. But of course you aren’t supposed to run
anyone down: the car also has a pedestrian sensing camera that can invoke
automatic braking.

Inside,
Volvo’s usual calm, welcoming design has been updated by giving most models a
highly configurable full-TFT instrument pack, like the sort of thing we’ve seen
from Range Rover. You sit on newly designed seats which turn out to be
exquisitely comfy. Neat design touches include a cleanly frameless rear-view
mirror, and a backlit gearknob.

Volvo
of course has always been good at safety, and in recent years its design hasn’t
been any too shabby either. The problem has come when you came to drive them
and got kyboshed by rubbery steering and a turbulent ride. And here we find
things might just have taken a turn for the better.

It’s
still several months to the on-sale date, but Volvo let me have a steer of a
few prototypes on a greasy wet test track in Sweden. The surface was too smooth
to tell me anything about the ride, but in other ways Volvo’s confidence does
seem justified.

The
150 and 180bhp petrols both use Ford’s 1.6 Ecoboost as per a Focus. The result
is a smooth, torquey flow of urge that the chassis seems perfectly comfortable
with. It turns eagerly, doesn’t melt into understeer and – crikey, is this a
Volvo? – provides decent steering feel and an opportunity to trim the line with
the throttle, even with the ESP on.

Then
the 2.0 diesel. This uses Volvo’s own five-cylinder, which sounds highly
agreeable and doesn’t hang about. Trouble is, you certainly feel the weight of
that big old block ahead of you when you swivel into a tight corner.

The
short straight is good for about 85mph at the far end, at which rate there
wasn’t much to worry about in engine or wind noise.

Jumping
into an unfamiliar car and having very little time to get to know it is
actually rather a stern test of control layout and driving position, and the
V40 made me feel right at home.

It’s
too soon to say this is a good car, but it’s certainly a promising one. Just as
well. In making a hatch, Volvo is going into the busiest part of the car
market. A place where the opposition is properly fierce.